Let me stop you here, Conner. You just called yourself a "star." If you were a "star," Alex wouldn't have had to ask. What's with porn actors always being referred to as "porn stars"? Actors in conventional movies aren't always called "stars," even when they actually are so well-known that if we had the chance to converse with them, we wouldn't resort to the old "What do you do?" small-talk staple.

Quite aside from that, you're suddenly conveying the information that you have sex with other people and you're going to continue to do so because it's your job. That affects the other person's idea of you as relationship material. Note that the 2 men were on a relationship-y type of a date at "this bourgeois tea and food place," with "a statue of Buddha," a menu that was "all platitudes," and teas with "names like 'Goddess of Wisdom' and 'Ocean of Mercy.'" Conner sounds awfully judgmental about the things Alex likes, Alex having ordered the Oceans of Mercy and Conner having limited himself to a glass of water.

What is it about us you don't like? I never get the answer, just the symptoms of the answer.

I guess Clarity of Answers was not on the menu. Write your own platitude.

Much more at the linked article (in The Stranger), including Habib's encounters with students at colleges in "middle of nowhere" towns where his lecture concentrates on the "blurry lines between 'pornography' and other forms of art." Between the blurry lines of his article, I see that the students are less interested in his musing about the art-porn continuum than in the dynamics of gender oppression, which seems to puzzle him, though it sounds exactly like what you'd expect from college students, even as exactly what you'd expect from a lecturing porn actor is the assertion that this too is art.

By the way, of course it's art. That's not a high bar in my book. But is it good art? Almost no art is.

Perhaps people dislike pornographic actors because, while they probably don't think pornography should be illegal, they still consider it immoral and a contributing factor to the coarsening of our culture.

After a minute, Alex said something like "That's nice." Or maybe he asked me a question. To be honest, I can't remember. What I do remember is that we were at his place not long after, making out on his bed. He was an amazing kisser, and our bodies fit together perfectly. And that's how our relationship started.

I've worked jobs before, I haven't always been a dead-beat, I've held many illustrious positions in the minimum-wage professions (laughter). For instance, I once delivered pizzas: let me tell you, delivering pizza is nowhere as exciting as the porn industry would like you to believe (laughter). A bit disappointing, that...

Now, I wouldn't mind working in the porn industry, but I would expect you would have to start at the bottom: yes, that was an anal sex joke, people, you can laugh (laughter). No, I mean they probably have you begin with menial tasks, like mopping sticky floors and wiping down pleather sofas after a shoot, perhaps a spot-cleaning of the ceiling in some areas (laughter). A lot of cleaning products involved there, I would think, a lot of cleaning products (laughter): the set better smell like Pine-Sol, bleach and Lemon Pledge when you're done, not like a Strip Club in Vegas after an after-hours P-Diddy party (laughter)...

After awhile you could maybe work your way up to becoming a go-fer: no matter how well you think you might have stocked for the shoot, I'm sure there'll always be a need for someone to run to the drugstore for more Klennex, Red Bull and lube (laughter)...

Yeah: hat's the thing about these glamorous industries (laughter), not everyone can be a star (laughter). Behind all the glitz and the magic are the little people, trying to find out where that last used condom ended up (laughter)... You've been great, thank you...

The blurry line isn't between porn and art but between porn and prostitution.......I didn't read the entire article. It's quite long. Maybe people don't like him because he never shuts up about being a porn star......I wonder if he gets paid more for giving talks about being a porn star than for actually performing as a porn star. Another blurry line. Where have all the red lines gone?....I hope he gets paid more than Bill Ayers.

He knows perfectly well "what it is about us that you don't like". Only the willfully obtuse pretend to be puzzled by the stigma associated with porn. Rail against the hypocrisy of its consumers all you please, but spare us the meandering exercises in denial.

As David @8:35 suggests, he's trying to control what people think of him, and good luck with that.

"When was the last time you sat through the dialogue of a porno movie? TV repairman comes to the door, his [unintelligible] a lovely young lady, sometimes I just want to see where that conversation is going. Instead we fast foward to see Rex the human tripod uncork his champagne."

To my mind, a star is someone well known in their field, a superstar is someone well known outside their field. Vladimir Guerrero is a star, Michael Jordan is a superstar.

It's easier to be a superstar in some fields than in others.

So it doesn't strike me as odd that he considers himself a star yet has to explain what he does to someone who doesn't know porn beyond casual watching.

But back to why someone would be reluctant to date a porn star. If he doesn't understand why some people wouldn't want to date porn actors and, more importantly, if he isn't understanding of people who don't want to date porn actors, then he isn't dating material anyway.

I read the whole thing and I saw the twist coming at the end. The conversation on the train ride during the underground tunnel was too cheeky and cliched. I have a hard time believing this guy has taught some college English courses.

"Let me stop you here, Conner. You just called yourself a "star." If you were a "star," Alex wouldn't have had to ask."

Alex would not have had to ask, if he was a follower of the porn genre, which very few people are.

I could meet the world's most famous cricket player and never know it since I don't follow cricket. He could tell me he is a cricket star and I could believe him or not, only a fan of cricket would automatically know the truth.

Disapproval or distaste is not hate. So I think it is impossible to answer the question, because it begins by being inaccurate.

As to why people disapprove of porn, there are many reasons. It's a form of prostitution, and maybe it's not something that can be banned, but it certainly should be regulated.

People do hate pimps, because they make money off it, and they can be very exploitative. Those who make the porn films are pimps, and they pay the performers very little, and they make an awful lot. In the process the performers are the ones who run all the risks. There are real risks, not least of which are lack of strong romantic relationships.

I felt very sorry for the author because apparently he's still stuck on this guy Alex. But he was unrealistic about the relationship - if Alex was monogamous, and the author was emphatically not, it seems like the author was refusing to see the obvious and is now creating an excuse for that. The author knows damn well it was about the porn, and is deflecting the blame onto society.

The bottom line is, Alex wanted a monogamous relationship, and the author didn't. It's got nothing to do with societal attitudes.

But realistically, how many prostitutes have firm relationships? It's hard to put your all into a relationship with someone who's sleeping with a couple hundred other people a year. Hard and risky on several different levels. Life - it forces choices and tradeoffs on us all.

It's simple. The traditional and natural perception is that sexual relations are a subset of intimate relationships, especially with a focus on procreation. Pornography, other than forcing a focus which reduces a human life to its parts, sabotages the traditional and natural social structures. It panders and provokes our base desires, which distracts us from life, love, and happiness. In this respect, it acts as a quasi-psychotropic drug.

So, the purveyors of pornography are analogous to drug lords. While the actors are analogous to drug pushers. Or perhaps its pimps and prostitutes. Either way, do not inhale and do not buy the "rent-a-friend" model. They offer a short-term high, with often long-term consequences.

40 years ago, back in our younger days, my life long best friend (and current family attorney) and meself were rapping about what would "the perfect job". We decided to form a company called Stunt Cock Inc. where in the director yells "Cut! Bring in the stunt cocks." We would then run in and, assume whatever the position was and be filmed from navel to thigh our identities forever hidden. But this was back in the days of ill lit and grainy film...With modern HD it would probably be a no go nowadays... I guess we tapped the glass one to many times for that one.

Stephen Hawking's first love was pornography. He was a superstar among a small coterie of motorized wheelchair fetishists, but he had less appeal among the wider audience. They found his movies slow moving and ponderous. His movie, My Sinner With Andrea, did receive favorable critical notice. It was in that movie that he first formed his theory of black holes.

Well I hate to state the obvious but to many many people, commercial sex (prostitution, strip clubs, pornography) is not only immoral but gross. There's a reason we have an instinctive recoil instinct from promiscuity. As the great Banky says about the titular Amy, "I'm telling you that chick is probably a bigger germ farm than that monkey in Outbreak!"

This (sort of) confirms my assumption that most male porn actors are gay -- that's the only way they can maintain the required -- detachment. If I'd had such a job in my youth (if you knew me you'd laugh more than Betamax's audience), they'd have had to stop the shoot every 45 seconds or so.

The other thing I used to assume was that making porn movies was illegal and must be done "underground". I mean, as several commenters have said, it's not fundamentally different from prostitution, which I think is still illegal except in Nevada. But the news tells me that the porn movie "industry" in California is big enough that they can threaten to move out of state if the government require that the "actors" use condoms, and nobody laughs. What a weird world we live in.

Pornography, other than forcing a focus which reduces a human life to its parts, sabotages the traditional and natural social structures. It panders and provokes our base desires, which distracts us from life, love, and happiness. In this respect, it acts as a quasi-psychotropic drug.

It is a shame to see physically abnormal bodies slamming into each other, watched by people who care nothing for the human beings involved and focus exclusively on their physical side. Then there's the base pandering to our lust for violence, strife, and tribalism, distracting us from from life, love, and happiness.

Iago hated Othello; he certainly didn't despise him. He hated him because he could not despise him.

David: ...why are people whom I mildly despise (or would if I gave them any thought) so eager to characterize my disapproval as hate?

Hate can be much more easily incorporated into one's personal psycho-drama in a self-flattering way. After all, the envious and resentful hate, inferiority is not inherent in being a hate-ee. (Who can't easily tolerate being hated for his beauty, wealth, or brilliance - or defensively fabricated special snowflake-osity?) But contempt is unbearable.

Physical attributes, but not physical components. It's the difference between art and pornography.

I'm trying to pick a coherent thought out of that reply, but it isn't working. I can't tell if you're claiming professional sports are art (which seems sillier) or that pro sports don't focus on the physical components of the players (which seems, if anything, sillier).

The TV series I miss most, "Sports Night", had a few episodes in which Joshua Molina's character dated a 'porn star'. One of the recurring lines is that those in the industry prefer the term 'adult film actor'.

The women in the industry are widely recognized to be nearly pathological liars. They are called PWs, short for porn whores. Their trash boyfriends who double as their "agents" are referred to as "suitcase pimps."The men are called 'stunt cocks.' The unknown, shiftless random losers who answer cattle call ads for bukakke shoots and the like are called "mopes."